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Friday, June 23, 2006

Labor makes inroads in the South

David Sirota highlights some good news for workers and labor in the South:
The Wall Street Journal reports today that "unions are making inroads in some parts of the historically nonunion South -- organizing call-center workers, janitors, sanitation workers and school-bus drivers -- by tapping frustrations over low wages and benefits and developing new organizing strategies to battle employer opposition." Specifically, "several individual Southern states saw increases in union membership...In Mississippi, the percentage of workers who belonged to a union increased to 7.1% last year from 4.7% a year earlier, while membership grew to 5.3% from 5.1% in Texas and to 10.2% from 9.7% in Alabama."
It's interesting that unions are gaining in the Deep South states, which are historically more conservative, while their presence continues to be weak in, for example, in North and South Carolina, which battle every year for being in the basement for union representation.
posted by Chris Kromm at 12:19 PM | Email this post | Post a Comment
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CHRIS KROMM blogs three days a week for Facing South. Chris is Executive Director of the Institute for Southern Studies and publisher of the Institute’s award-winning magazine, Southern Exposure.

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